Posts tagged ‘steelmaking’

One day before the American people went to the polls to elect their next president, the US Department of Commerce made another pivotal decision that directly benefitted domestic sheet steel producers but didn’t make for splashy headlines.

An Austrian company, steelmaker Voestalpine, started making hot-briquetted iron (HBI) — a steelmaking raw material that can be melted like scrap — at a $740 million plant in Corpus Christi, Texas. The 2 million mt/year operation represents the largest investment ever made in the US by an Austrian company.

As China looks set to create the world’s second largest steelmaking company through the merging of Baosteel and Wuhan I&S, Europe’s steel industry is on the brink of a pair of mergers that would genuinely transform the region’s industry.

Assuming Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp combine, and ArcelorMittal is successful in its pursuit of Ilva, what would the newly consolidated European flat steel industry look like?

A while ago, a friend sent me an article via WeChat, talking about the top 10 careers that would disappear in the e-era. On top of the list is “journalist,” and I tried to understand the real agenda behind my friend’s action, a tease or a gentle reminder.

My attendance of BHP Billiton’s formal launch of its Prospects blog on Sept. 1 has made me realize that it could have been a gentle reminder after all. No pressure, but she nudged me to think in the long run.

Brazilian steelmaker CSN has been going through some turbulence since the incident at its No. 3 blast furnace in late April. Sources in Brazil note there have been delays in deliveries and it has been reported the company ordered a batch of slab from Iran to roll at its steelmaking complex in Rio de Janeiro state.

Yi Xiaorong, 51, was retrenched after having worked at a Wuhan Iron & Steel subsidiary since the eighties.

After various setbacks, she now earns Yuan 30,000 ($4,600) a month as a confinement nanny, and is being held up as a shining example of how one can re-emerge successful when armed with a never-say-die attitude.

The price relationship between iron ore and steel scrap delivered into the key import markets of China and Turkey is keenly watched in the ferrous market.

The ratio is seen as a barometer of the health of the two predominant steelmaking routes, the blast furnace and electric arc furnace, and can suggest which route may have the upper hand in terms of competitiveness.